The CBS 60 Minutes Richard Clarke Interview

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It still seems like the only thing that will convince is documentation from both administrations. Otherwise, the only thing that will be proven is Condi, Powell, Bush, Berger, Clinton, Albright AND Clarke can talk. I mean Armitage refutes Clarke, Berger refutes Armitage, you have some viscerally partisan hacks on the Commission... I think a look at National Security documentation from BOTH administrations should clear it up.

Sofia...it is the specifics of the claims and counter-claims that have to be studied. To say that Armitage refutes Clarke isn't very helpful. The question is, on what specifics is there a conflict? Armitage comes off very well indeed in Clarke's book, as does Colin Powell and almost everyone else who was working on the terrorism problem. Armitage has refuted very little of what Clarke has said. Likewise Powell. And then you have to look at the wording of what they've said. They have not, for example, said that Rice or Bush were eagerly pushing for information on al Qaeda, nor even that their meetings and briefings demonstrated much interest in the matter.

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When Clarke says, "...and they did nothing." I'm not convinced 1) He knew everything that was being done, or 2) that he's not exaggerating, because they rejected his plan or 3) that he's not purposefully inflicting wounds on an administration that didn't give him what he thought he deserved.

As to 1)...Why on earth wouldn't he know? He was at the center of agencies involved in the matter. Clarke, as others have put it, WAS the loop. Right here I suspect you of simply accepting the Cheney claim. It's a claim that won't stand up to any scrutiny of the materials. As to 2)and 3)...again, part of the ad hominem smear engaged to discredit the INFORMATION.

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I do know he is profitting from 911, and that he is casting himself as the Only One Who Was Right Martyr. But I withhold judgement on whether or not he's lying or telling the truth, or something in between. We'll see what happens.

Clarke is profiting from 9-11 no more than the Bush campaign in running ads with Bush at the WTC site, and in moving their convention there. It is irrelevant anyway, as no one could write a book on the subject, or even apply for a job within the government utilizing their expertise on the matter, without being labeled as profit-making. Again, you've bought into the smear.

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You seem to think he's superhuman, and not capable of egotism, anger at rejection, and other human frailties.

I haven't bought into anything at this point. It appears you have.

Blatham, PDid, all--
Blatham is right. It is about the specifics of the claims. That is what I have been asking for. Something specific which someone believed. Then, as PDid posted some, I saw that it was all "he said, they said."

Which is why it seems this would be a waste of our time until some documentation comes out of the Commission.

Otherwise, we're comparing others' versions.

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Sofia wrote:

It still seems like the only thing that will convince is documentation from both administrations. [..] I think a look at National Security documentation from BOTH administrations should clear it up.

Problem there would be, as I understand it, that the Bush administration doesnt want to grant us "a look" at that documentation.

PDiddie highlighted just one item on that score here when he wrote:

PDiddie wrote:

Declassifying the transcripts, e-mail, memos and other communications -- and Richard Clarke deserves praise for joining Senate Majority Leader Frist in this call to clear his name -- is actually not compatible with national security.

But taking the transcripts, cutting the individual words into scraps and pasting them back together into incriminating sentences might be okay...

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U.S. officials told NBC News that the full record of Clarke's testimony two years ago would not be declassified. They said that at the request of the White House, however, the CIA was going through the transcript to see what could be declassified, with an eye toward pointing out contradictions.

[..] It's one thing to declassify the whole thing. Perhaps there's even rationale in a post-9/11 world for that, though why only Clarke's words and no one else's should be released seems odd.

But the whole thing won't be released, which would be the only way to really evaluate what he said. Only portions selected to highlight apparent contradictions.

We're on dangerous enough ground when the White House starts using the nation's intelligence agencies for explicitly political purposes.

But you know we're really in trouble when they don't even try to hide it.

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Dr. Rice:

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"Our plan [the pre-9/11 National Security Presidential Directive on Terrorism] called for military options to attack al Qaeda and Taliban leadership, ground forces and other targets - taking the fight to the enemy where he lived."

3/22/04

Oh Condi, you're in for some real trouble on this....

(The questioner is Commissioner Gorelick:)

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The Commission reports that Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley rejected Clarke's urgent call for a quick decision in favor of providing secret military aid to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan to prevent their defeat by the Taliban.

The plan developed by Rice actually called for two stages of diplomatic efforts with the Taliban before resorting to military action.

Where did all your backup go, Sofe?

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No matter, though. The silence speaks convincingly. :wink:

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sofia sofia sofia

Why would you even bring up these character issues? And how is it that they are EXACTLY the same character issues forwarded by administration spokespersons?

Clarke does make negative charges about this administration, but he backs up those charges with real information. "Egoism", or "profit-motivated", "mad at rejection" AREN'T information. They are character derogations.

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PDid--

I think I said the silence speaks convincingly after asking anybody for any bit of specificity for the fifth time.

Its a little lame to sneak it in when I haven't even seen what you wrote.

Is that from the Commission? And, were we expected to invade someone prior to 911?

Blatham--
I bring them up because Clarke is a human, just like the rest of us. He is either doing nothing more than telling the sterling truth...or not. If not, his motivations are in question. Try to stop visualizing him atop a white steed.

The reason the administration and I have picked up on the same possible motives is we both know he applied for a job he didn't get, and that he has a book for sale.

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sofia

Let me just add that I'm really quite fond of you, and I'm happy to see you around again. You've got two or three of us lobbing grenades at you right now, and we've taken to this issue with no small interest. So consider this a little wave and hug from an old friend.

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blatham wrote:

Sofia wrote:
I mean Armitage refutes Clarke, Berger refutes Armitage, you have some viscerally partisan hacks on the Commission...

Sofia...it is the specifics of the claims and counter-claims that have to be studied.

That, and the points where stuff has actually been confirmed. For example, I remember posting here about how Powell unwittingly confirmed Clarke's point about the administrations single-minded focus on Iraq over Osama. He recounted how just four days after 9/11, Wolfowitz wanted to attack Iraq Shocked

.

The confirmation of that anecdote (even though in Powell's telling, GWB ended up telling Wolfowitz no, for now ("first things first"), at the very least lends extra credence to some of Clarke's other claims. For example, that the intelligence agencies were asked by the Pentagon to report about possible Iraq/AQ links, and when they returned with the finding that there wasn't much evidence on any, were told "wrong answer" and sent back - three times in a row. (Hope I got the details right, there).

An administration so caught up in what it wants, expects and even insists on finding in the intelligence it gets, will be quite likely to overlook what it doesn't want or expect to find in it - and thats dangerous to national security.

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PDiddie wrote:

Zero is the number of statements in the public record by Bush, Cheney or Rice mentioning al Qaeda or bin Laden from their inauguration until 9/11.

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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 2, 2001

Notice
Continuation of Emergency with Respect to the Taliban

On July 4, 1999, the President issued Executive Order 13129, "Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions with the Taliban," to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the actions and policies of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The order blocks all property and interests in property of the Taliban and prohibits trade-related transactions by United States persons involving the territory of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban. The last notice of continuation was signed on June 30, 2000.

The Taliban continues to allow territory under its control in Afghanistan to be used as a safe haven and base of operations for Usama bin Laden and the al-Qaida organization who have committed and threaten to continue to commit acts of violence against the United States and its nationals. For these reasons, I have determined that it is necessary to maintain in force these emergency authorities beyond July 4, 2001. Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing the national emergency declared on July 4, 1999, with respect to the Taliban. This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,
June 30, 2001

whitehouse.gov

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Blatham-- :wink:

Nimh-- I wouldn't be surprised if Bush was convinced there was a connection to Saddam, and was infuriated that Clarke 'couldn't find it'.

And, I think this could be right--

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An administration so caught up in what it wants, expects and even insists on finding in the intelligence it gets, will be quite likely to overlook what it doesn't want or expect to find in it - and thats dangerous to national security

I would insist in adding, I don't think Bush came upon his beliefs about Iraq out of thin air, or 'oil grabbing'. Saddam was bankrolling terrorists (Pals) and I believe the administration when they say they had more pertinent intel. However, your quote above applies.

The 'sent back' thing...I want more witnesses. Going to start reading transcripts tomorrow.

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Tarantulas--
Appreciate your work. That is one down. I've been so busy here, I haven't researched any of PDid's list. Will come back with info (hopefully, if life relents again) tomorrow.

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Responding to the fact that Clarke called for arming Predators (the unmanned reconnaissance drones), Rice claimed "we pushed hard to arm the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle so we could target terrorists with greater precision" prior to 9-11. That's again from the Washington Post interview of 3/22/04 I have quoted her extensively from.

While the Pentagon successfully tested an armed Predator in the first half of 2001, the Bush administration failed to resolve a bureaucratic struggle over whether the CIA or Pentagon should operate the system.

While the Predator spotted Osama bin Laden three times in late 2000, the Bush administration failed to even fly an unmanned Predator over Afghanistan prior to 9-11.

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Well, hell.
If they spotted him, why the hell didn't they DO something?

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Per Clarke, the military's plans for snatch'n'grabs frequently resembled larger versions of the D-Day invasion. CIA often had no personnell to send in, without taking the risk of annhialating their entire Afghanistan network. Consequently, the plans were almost never approved.

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Now IMO this is the most damning set of lies (at least relative to this circumstance):

In May 2002, Condoleezza Rice claimed:

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"I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."

And again, from the WP on 3/22/04, she said:

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"[W]e received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack airplanes to try to free U.S.-held terrorists."

And you may recall that President Bush drove the point home a few days later:

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"Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to strike America, to attack us, I would have used very resource, every asset, every power of this government to protect the American people."

Yet the many and various warnings received (see below) were sufficient for Attorney General Ashcroft to begin traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines because of what the Justice Department called "a threat assessment."

In 2001, Sibel Edmonds, a translator with the FBI, indicates that it was clear there was sufficient information during the spring and summer of 2001 to indicate terrorists were planning an attack.

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"President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September," she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away.

-- The Independent, 4/2/04

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Bush received an August 6, 2001 memo entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." which mentioned bin Laden's desire and capability to strike the US possibly using hijacked airplanes. The CIA warned that bin Laden will launch an attack against the US and/or Israel in the coming weeks that "will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against US facilities or interests."

--Dana Priest, Washington Post, 7/25/03

The Bush administration prevented the release of details of the August 6th briefing in the report issued by the Joint Congressional Committee investigating the 9-11 attack.

Also that summer, intelligence reports indicated that (a) Middle Eastern terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack "American and Israeli symbols which stand out"; (b) there was a threat to assassinate Bush at the July 2001 G-8 summit using an airplane stuffed with explosives; (c) al-Qaeda was planning an attack using multiple airplane hijackings; and (d) that bin Laden was in advanced stages of executing a significant operation within the US.

(Various sources published the data in the paragraph above, but they originated from the reports of John J. Lumpkin of the Associated Press.)

The CIA's National Reconnaissance Office had scheduled an emergency drill in which a small corporate jet would crash into an office tower following equipment failure for the morning of September 11th.

In February 2001, the Hart-Rudman report warned that "mass-casualty terrorism directed against the U.S. homeland was of serious and growing concern" and that the US was woefully unprepared for a 'catastrophic' domestic terrorist attack. President Bush refused to act on this report, preferring to await the findings of Cheney's terrorist task force, which we know failed to ever meet before 9-11.

And there were specific warnings about hijacked planes potentially being used as terrorist weapons dating to 1994.

Intelligence reports from 1998 indicated that bin Laden had a plot involving explosive-laden aircraft in the New York and D.C. areas while a 2000 report mentioned that possible bin Laden targets included the Statue of Liberty, skyscrapers and nuclear power plants.

In 1994 Algerians hijacked an Air France jet with the intention to fly it into the Eiffel Tower; in 1995 Philippine authorities uncovered an al Qaeda plot to fly a plane into CIA headquarters; and there were al Qaeda plots in 1996 and 1997 to fly a plane from outside the US into the White House and World Trade Center.

Most amazingly of all, Dr. Rice reportedly admitted privately to the 9-11 panel that she had "misspoken" when she said there were no prior warnings, but then proceeded to repeat this claim in public, as her quotes in last week's WP indicate.

Her testimony next Thursday morning is going to be pivotal for her credibility, as well as that of the master she serves.

It's really not about Richard Clarke any more.

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Sofia wrote:

Well, hell.
If they spotted him, why the hell didn't they DO something?

Queasy about having the US government order its own army to execute an assasination, on foreign/hostile territory to boot, I guess ... just look at what Israel got as reaction for murdering the Hamas sheik, and how that reaction would have been if it were the US doing such an assassination, halfway across the world. The US has some experience in having local allies do assassinations, but itself, midway in the "peace dividend" nineties? That would be where that paragraph from the article I just posted applies:

"The inhibitions that prevented American forces from trying to kill bin Laden when they had opportunities reflect [..] the triumph of queasy international lawyers over ethical realists. Such rules date back to the Ford administration's interdict, pushed on it by the Church Committee, against assassinations of anyone. Even now, technically, our armed forces cannot kill any important terrorist unless they are actually trying to capture him--or pretending to."

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PDiddie wrote:

Zero is the number of references to al Qaeda in Dr. Rice's 2000 Foreign Affairs article listing Bush's top foreign affairs priorities.

The article is here, or at least the first 500 of 6,549 words total. I'm not going to purchase the article to confirm the statement, but I do have one comment:

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Condoleezza Rice is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. She is also foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.

Of course, George Bush wasn't sworn into office until January 20, 2001, so Dr. Rice's article was a preliminary effort. I don't think the current administration can be faulted for their unfinished ideas before they even took office.

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Sofia wrote:

Well, hell.
If they spotted him, why the hell didn't they DO something?

Don't you remember what was going on in late 2000, dahlink?

Remember what those nasty conservatives like Trent Lott said about Bill Clinton when cruise missles were fired at bin Laden?

The more important question -- and you know it's the more important question -- is why didn't Bush do anything?

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Tarantulas wrote:

I don't think the current administration can be faulted for their unfinished ideas before they even took office.

Actually they can and should, since others finished those ideas years in advance of their assuming office.

This willful ignorance reflects the general incompetence of the so-called 'grownups' in charge, and is the best evidence necessary to enact regime change of our own in Washington DC in November.

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PDid--
Do you really think it's a good excuse to say, "Well, I really couldn't protect National Security because I'd been screwing around, and I was worried about what people may say."?

I really did get a laugh. This is one of the most egregious, avoidable failures.

I'm sure both administrations and the major agencies have several key failures--but to me, this is by far the worst that has been proven so far.

But with stinking crap like Clinton's excuse, trying to blame the whole thing on Bush is laughable. I DO want to see what steps Bush and co. took. It doesn't seem they can do worse than the previous administration, however.

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The CBS 60 Minutes Richard Clarke Interview

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